Cognition/Cognitive Science

Illusionism is the view that phenomenal consciousness is an illusion. This book is a reprint of a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies devoted to this topic. It takes the form of a target paper by the editor, followed by commentaries from various thinkers representing various academic disciplines.

The Many Faces of Coincidence proposes an inclusive categorisation for coincidences of all shapes and sizes. At the same time, some of the implications arising from the various explanations are explored, including the possibility of an underlying unity of mind and matter constituting the ground of being.

This book discusses a process (microgenetic) theory of the mental state of creativity that differs markedly from mainstream (cognitive) psychology, but with the potential to clarify many features of thought and imagery, normal and exceptional. Creativity is not an isolated problem but touches many central issues in philosophical psychology.

In this brief introduction, Lakoff and Wehling reveal how cognitive science research has advanced our understanding of political thought and language, forcing us to revise common folk theories about the rational voter.

Between 1965 and 2002 several key lines of research emerged which, taken together, can potentially revolutionise our understanding of the place of consciousness in the universe. In this book the author explains the close connections between these new ingredients.

Outline of a Theory from Semiotics, Philosophy and SociologyMartin Staude

This book presents a general and formal theory of meaning, signs, and language. The theory is presented in a clear and consistent way offering novel and provocative insights into the fundamental structures and processes of communication, cognition, and reality.

This book focuses on externalist approaches to art. It is the first fruit of a workshop held in Milan in September 2009, where leading scholars in the emerging field of psychology of art compared their different approaches using a neutral language and discussing freely their goals.

This special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies is the sequel to Ten Years of Viewing from Within, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the publication of The View from Within, where Francisco Varela in collaboration with Jonathan Shear designed the foundations of a research program on lived experience.

Here is an account of mentality and human experience, written for a multi-disciplinary readership. The focus is on how mind, consciousness and selves inter-relate, extending into exploration of ideas about the nature of awareness and a search for relevant evidence.

This book describes the application of Artificial Life simulation to evolutionary scenarios of wide ethical interest, including the evolution of altruism, rape and abortion, providing a new meaning to "experimental philosophy".

Ten years on from The View From Within, Claire Petitmengin has organized a collection of essays that examine and refine the research program on first-person methods defined in The View from Within, with contributions based on empirical research.

This book uses a neo-Aristotelian framework to examine human subjectivity as an embodied being. It examines the varieties of reductionism that affect philosophical writing about human origins and identity.

Western individualism has delayed scientific recognition of the essentially social nature of consciousness – or at least of the human mind and brain. The contributors to this volume, introduce some anthropological themes into consciousness studies.

In this wide-ranging book the author presents his critique of the contemporary portrayal of cognition, an analysis of the conceptual foundations of cognitive science and a proposal for a new concept of the mind.

The roots of cognitivism lie deep in the history of Western thought, and to develop a genuinely post-cognitivist psychology, this investigation goes back to presuppositions descended from Platonic/Cartesian assumptions and beliefs about the nature of thought.

Questions on the nature of concepts in philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science, such as 'What are concepts?' and ‘What is it to possess a concept?’ are notoriously difficult to answer. These questions are tackled here by Simon Baron-Cohen, Peter Carruthers, and a distinguished cast of scientists and philosophers.

Adams sets out a new reasoned argument, based on his experience as a cognitive psychologist and as a human being, to show why Socrates was right: the purpose of life is to recognize ourselves — in each other and in all things.

What is it for you to be conscious? To be conscious now, for instance, of the room you are in? Theories on offer divide into just two categories, labelled by Ted Honderich as devout physicalism and spiritualism.

Emotion experience has failed to date to gain a central place in the study of consciousness. This special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies presents the most recent views on the matter, with discussions of several aspects of emotion experience.

The Science, Consciousness and Ultimate Reality project was set up with the support of the John Templeton Foundation in order to examine critical issues at the interface between science, religion and the field of 'consciousness studies'.

This collection of essays shows that a simple division into 'sceptics' and ‘believers’ for the paranormal cannot be made. The real struggle, for all researchers, is not with each other, but to get a secure hold on the subject itself.

Can a machine really be conscious? Can it have feelings? Well, even the humble thermostat knows when it gets too hot — and it can do something about it too. But can a machine think thoughts? Does it have a personality? How would you know?

Could a machine have an immaterial mind? The author argues that true conscious machines can be built, but rejects artificial intelligence and classical neural networks in favour of the emulation of the cognitive processes of the brain—the flow of inner speech, inner imagery and emotions.

In daily life we take it for granted that our minds have conscious control of our actions, at least for most of the time. But many scientists and philosophers deny that this is really the case, because there is no generally accepted theory of how the mind interacts with the body. Max Velmans presents a non-reductive solution to the problem.

William James published his classic work on the psychology of religion, "The Varieties of Religious Experience", in 1902. To mark the centenary, leading contemporary scholars reflect on changes in our understanding of the questions James addressed.

There is a traditional scepticism about whether the world "out there" really is as we perceive it. A new breed of hyper-sceptics now challenges whether we even have the perceptual experience we think we have. The writings collected in this volume explore the implications of this scepticism.

A comprehensive reader on the problem of the self as seen from the perspectives of philosophy, development psychology, robotics, cognitive neuroscience, psychopathology, semiotics, phenomenology and contemplative studies, all focused on a keynote paper.

The mind is the brain. Each mental state -- each hope, fear, thought -- can be identified with a particular physical state of the brain, without remainder. So argues Nicholas Humphrey in this highly readable yet scholarly essay.

Traditional cognitive science is Cartesian in the sense that it takes as fundamental the distinction between the mental and the physical, the mind and the world. The authors depart radically from this model.

Drawing on a wide range of approaches — from phenomenology to meditation — THE VIEW FROM WITHIN examines the possibility of a disciplined approach to the study of subjective states. The focus is on the practical issues involved.